Taro T

Wtf does Aaron Rodgers have to do w/ the Buffalo Sabres analytics department? 😉

Ha! That was the 2nd song they played Thursday. They actually played both as bookends around Enter Sandman.

Thanks for that. Personally, don't see Krebs' gaffes as being as spectacularly 'watch me, I'm the best player out here' which was always my take when Connolly screwed up pre-lockout but more of the 'I've got a teammate w/ a great opportunity if I can thread this through.' Thought Connolly was a selfish player early and don't see any of that from Krebs. Also, though Connolly was only a little bigger than him, he increased his strength tremendously before coming back from the lockout. Not convinced Krebs has the frame for that to be possible. (Would be very pleased to be wrong about that.) Timmy matured greatly after the lockout. Guess the younger Connolly is too etched & it is so different than Krebs to fully see where Krebs path might follow Tim's. (And hopefully minus the injuries.)

Talentwise, he is at best the 14th skater on this team. But unless they decide they're going to force Asplund into the 4C role when it seems they see him as a 2 way winger, or they decide they're going to roll 4 offensive lines (including a line w/ Cozens-Okposo on it) rather than 3 w/ either a checking/ energy line, fully expect him to be the 11th or 12th F on opening night.

Agree w/ this in large part. Really think he believes that Levi can be THAT guy, but even if he isn't he knows that when the skaters are ready, they will need GTing. But really not convinced that he thinks they need THAT guy. Expect he believes that with enough tickets, he can find one that can get hot enough at the right time. (Again, his SC ring came courtesy of Ward & Gerber behind a playoff roster that only lost 1 man game in 4 rounds from what it started with. (And Eric friggin' Cole was the injury replacement.)) He's lived 'meh' goalies getting hot at the right time behind enough firepower. Still believe that's a large part why the Sabres have Bales, he's made 'meh' goalies good enough in the past.

Truly an excellent show. As soon as the sun dropped below the scoreboard the temperature dropped a good 20 degrees and the weather was excellent from then. The 1st act (Ice Nine Kills) played for just over 40 minutes and were quite theatrical. Greta Van Fleet played for an hour. Then Metallica played for 2 hours with a bunch of the songs having some (or all) of the band set up on a small stage in the middle of the crowd. And it got dark just as they hit the stage. Perfectly timed & the 6PM start finally made sense. Disappointed they didn't play the Unforgiven, but that's a minor complaint. GREAT show. Had everything. The band was energized, the videos tracked well. Had layers, fireworks, & LOUD. Had never seen Metallica live. Went with the kids. It was worth the price of admission.

Distrust & the corresponding dislike of those that don't fit into our "tribe" (however determined though politics, race, age, sex, religion, regionalism, etc.) definitely seems to be on the rise though it's still lower than it was 50+ years ago. Not sure of the causes (though have some thoughts on that which will NOT be delved into here) but one solution seems to be to stop putting people into groups and rather focus on the individual. Also, try to cut our fellow human beings some slack (far easier said than done) when they say or do something that just flat out seems not up to our own standards. That person who seems ignorant, might actually be ignorant and not intentionally an arse. If you have the time & the inclination, help them; if not, ignore them and the next time you do have the time & the inclination, help the next ignorant person you run into. You know you will have plenty of opportunity to do so should you choose. And by help, don't chide, that won't do anything positive, but actually help. Understand yourself where that person is coming from & then maybe you can help them to understand your perspective. My 2 cents.

What in his game reminds you of Connolly? Don't see that at all. At Krebs age he was REALLY lazy in his own end, which Krebs isn't at all. Connolly at that stage also would carry the puck too much before making really dumb passes he was forced into. The dumb passes Krebs makes aren't a result of overplaying the puck but rather from believing he can put the puck through tighter windows than he can actually do so. When Connolly took the game seriously after THE lockout his style still seemed different than Krebs IMHO, though maybe there's a similarity there (thus the Q at the top of the post).

If you are referring to expected point totals, yes Savoie is more likely to be Briere than Krebs will. Krebs probably fits in more somewhere between Derek Plante & Derek Roy. But wasn't referring to his scoring, was referring to HOW he'll be deployed / have his greatest opportunity at success when playing C. And IMHO that will be as a C mainly in name & less in actual deployment. Briere was not good at the defensive responsibilities of C but he usually didn't need to be because he had guys like Hecht & (until he walked) Dumont on his line & then guys like Leino on his line who could help cover for his defensive deficiencies. Haven't seen enough of Savoie to know whether he'll need help or not, but just don't see Krebs bulking up to a point where he doesn't need help w/ the defensive responsibilities, though could see his savvy and earnestness at the 200' game being able to mask the deficiencies when he isn't going against top lines. Could see him centering Mittelstadt or Cozens with his "winger" getting a lot of responsibility in the Sabres end.

Johnson. (Ryan's dad.)

They're only going to keep 13 F's on the roster when everybody is healthy. Someone besides Bjork will be in Ra-cha-cha IF they come through TC unscathed.

Interesting. Really thought they'd hold the ceremony against the Ducks. 🍺

And for how many years did we expect Eakin to not be in the opening night lineup? Agree that he shouldn't be top 12, but expecting on opening night he is. Until he's actually made this year's Jankowski, will expect he's this year's Eakin. And Eakin did actually get healthy scratched at times by Granato. But he was in the lineup on day 1 every time. As for Asplund, expect he'd get that slot, but could see Hinostroza there as well. (Which is why he was listed 1st of the 2.)

With Sheahan, could see: Skinner - Thompson - Olofsson Quinn - Cozens - Okposo Krebs - Mittelstadt - Tuch Girgensons - Sheahan - Asplund/Hinostroza to start opening night if everyone's healthy.

You can call him the 14th forward, but unless Granato is being very creative (and he might) Sheahan will be slotted in as the 4C. It'd be cool to see the checking line be a true 2 way line with say Asplund- Cozens-Okposo (& Girgensons as the fill in when things slot around) in which case Riley is the 14 but not expecting that. Expecting him to C Girgensons & somebody. Okposo is an obvious choice, but expect him slotting higher. Maybe Hinostroza, maybe Asplund, maybe ???.

@Curt probably has the points about right. Expect Krebs will play more W than C but expect him to play a fair amount at each. LT expect him to play a Briere style C role where he's nominally the C but a linemate helps with a lot of the heavy lifting of the job.

Didn't sell T-shirts to help the local youth hockey team my kids had grown up through. (We didn't benefit, but a lot of my friends kids do.) Nor to buy the Ameks nor revive the Kin-ig-hit Hawks. Pretty sure the donation to Penn State didn't come through a foundation either. Of course they use fan good will/ generosity to make themselves look better. So does Wegmans everytime someone purchases that $1 or $5 charitable donation at the register. Pretty much every other corporation interacting closely w/ the public does the same. There are very few Paul Newman's that actually don't make a penny off stuff like this. Wish there were more like him, but is what it is. (And, sadly, he ain't here no more.)

1. The Knox Brothers buying into the Seals. Set the stage for us getting our own team. 2. Signing Imlach. Set the stage for us having an actual HOCKEY team rather than an expansion team. 3. Imlach putting on his glasses and getting us Bert on that lucky 11. 4. Fleecing Chicago for Dom for only Ruuttu and the pick that turned out to be Daze. (No, the trade in reality wasn't Beauregard & a pick for him. That's the lazy way of looking at it. Kind of like saying we traded Reinprecht to land Drury. Sabres obtained Steve strictly to land Chris. Same durn situation.) 5. 70 saves to go back to Joisey.

So, had that call. Hoping wrong about no more real G or D help and also no real top 9 F adds beyond bringing kids up

They should've brought him back last year to be able to punt Eakin into the sun for good (minus that late December/January spell when every F was broken, but we digress). Would love to see another guy better than him brought in, but now when injuries hit they've got another actual NHLer ready to step in at 4C. And if nobody beats him out at that slot, they know they have an NHLer there and can keep Girgensons at W where he belongs and Asplund at W where he likely belongs. The only sad thing about this signing is it would seem to indicate Adams is into the stocking of the fringe portion of the roster (as if the 3 AHL tweener D signings didn't already let us know that's where he's at) when there's still room for upgrades higher up. Realistically, he'll get 30-40 games and hold his own there. Glad he's back.

If he's expecting a penny over $1MM / yr, he's nuts. He should be happy w/ his qualifying offer. He's barely earned that.

Expect there's a better chance Levi or Portillo is the guy down the stretch than either Anderson or UPL regardless of whether Comrie falters. And expect this year it's Comrie's job until one of the other 5 take it from him.

The flip side is that he WILL cost himself some bargains. The hope is that those guys that get priced way to far out of his structure (whatever that turns out to be, we still aren't at the point any of it is above the footers, they they are down & in place which is more than we can say for his predecessor & to a degree his predecessor's predecessor) either truly are core and worth that price or (more likely IMHO) aren't truly core and can be shipped out for pieces that will extend the window once it has opened (the crank is turning, but not even sure it's been cracked enough to let a drizzle in from a monsoon) or that the remaining guys are close enough to core that losing a core piece or 2 isn't truly devastating. The fear is that losing out on those bargains will force the window to close quicker than it should've which IMHO is a legit fear, but it is so far off in the future that it isn't fully factoring in (& Tampa has shown, if you're good enough at evaluating talent that it'll still be open a darn long time). Adams is definitely playing the long game and has the team entertaining enough as it builds (theoretically) to contender status that the fans won't revolt and he'll still be employed here when that long game starts to produce significant results. Gut feel is the Pegulas will give him at least until Levi arrives before he needs to be concerned for job security. And let's face it, if they aren't in the playoffs by then he should be gone & probably should've been gone sooner. 😉

Face it. Ain't no donation gonna please everybody. Not even to a hospital. Why'd you donate to pediatrics when there's breast cancer research & treatment to support? Why'd you donate to breast cancer when thoracic medicine can save so many more lives? Why'd you donate to thoracic when ... ? And IMHO a lot of the criticism they recieve is another example (like the Peace Bridge Twin Span) of people being upset with the good because they didn't get great. Overall, are we in the greater WNY Region better off for them coming on the scene back in 2011? Again, just MHO, but would say yes we are. Could it be better? Absolutely. But from out here in the cheap seats it does seem to be getting better overall. My 2 cents. YMMV.

They've been keeping their charitable donations sports related for the most part AFAIK to date. Including putting money into youth sports that hasn't been as well reported as the Penn State one was. Probably because those have been significantly smaller (again, AFAIK). Also, are the Amerks & Kin-ig-hit Hawks not "beloved institutions?" The Kin-ig-hit Hawks would be gone without the Pegulas & possibly the Amerks as well. Didn't see a lot of people lining up to keep them in Ra-cha-cha after Styres got them because they came w/ the original Kin-ig-hit Hawks that were his real prize. B. Thomas Golisano didn't make the huge donation to U of R Strong that changed the name of the pediatric center until 2002. Pretty sure you're onto something when you point out a lot of those sort of donations don't happen too early in a billionaire's life.